New Generation Takes Over TJPW, Final STARDOM Matches For Departing Talents | Weekly Joshi Guide

Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling

Tokyo Joshi kicks off a new era at Grand Princess ’24, with the big story coming out of the event being that the young generation surpassed the veterans in each of the three title matches. The show was in front of 2349 fans in Sumo Hall, which is the highest attendance in the history of TJPW and a huge success for the second biggest Joshi promotion.

The undercard featured a great mix of work-rate matches and fun comedy bouts with all kinds of wrestlers in it. Stand-out matches were Masha Slamovich facing Rika Tatsumi and the Yuka Sakazaki return match together with Mizuki against Chris Brookes & Emi Sakura. Both matches are well worth the time to check out as they tore the house down. It was especially great to see Sakazaki again in a ring for the first time since her graduation match, as she had a fantastic performance in her match.

In the first championship match, the International Princess Title was on the line as Yuki Arai defended her title against former champion Yuki Kamifuku. The match was built around both wrestlers’ connection to Saki Akai, who retired from wrestling last year, with Kamiyu even having the top on that Akai gave her after both were together in the ring for the final time. The match itself was just fine, with both having solid interactions. Arai was able to win with the “Finally” kick and retain her championship for a second time to overcome the veteran.

The first title change of the day was in the semi-main event as Daisy Monkey won the Princess Tag Team Titles from Ryo Mizunami & Yuki Aino and finally captured the gold they had been trying to win for so long. The match took a while to get going, but the final minutes were emotional and well-worked, with Aino & Suzume having a good final stretch and Endo being the difference maker who saved her partner from losing and turned the match around for the challengers. Daisy Monkey used a Facebuster on Aino and Suzume finished her off with the Ring A Bell to win the first championship in her & Endo’s career in a great match.

The most newsworthy part of the show was undoubtedly the main event, where Miu Watanabe defeated Miyu Yamashita to become the new Princess of Princess Champion after pinning Yamashita clean with the Tear Drop. It was a tremendous match that featured two of the best in Tokyo Joshi leaving it all out there for 20 minutes. The performance of Yamashita was out of the world as she was locked in, focused, and just had one goal, and that was to put over Miu, and she achieved that in this match. Miu, on the other side, was a great underdog next to Yamashita’s final boss. The final five minutes were electric, with Yamashita hitting one of the nastiest skull kicks of her career, only for Miu to somehow kick out. Watanabe finished the match off with a Tear Drop to win the title and become the second-ever Grand Slam champion in TJPW after her Hakuchumu Tag Team Partner Rika Tatsumi.

The Sumo Hall show was a loud declaration that the new generation has officially taken over the promotion, with Arai, Suzume, Endo, and Miu Watanabe holding all three championships. There is a lot to look forward to in Tokyo Joshi in the upcoming months!

STARDOM

STARDOM had two tour shows this weekend that streamed live on PPV, featuring two championship matches on top of the final matches of Giulia, Yuzuki, MIRAI, Mai Sakurai, and Utami Hayashishita under STARDOM contract.

On the Sendai show, STARDOM had two title matches, with the first seeing E-neXus-V defeating God’s Eye to win the Artist of Stardom Championships in a good match. The match was focused around Xena & and MIRAI, who have been rivals since the start of Xena’s first run in the promotion last year. It was a hard-fought battle that ended with Xena winning. She won her first championship in STARDOM with that whilst Mina won the belt for a second time and Maika a third time. The “Empress” is now a double champion and holds both the World of Stardom and Artist of Stardom Championship at the same time.

In the main event of the show, Crazy Star won the Goddess of Stardom Championship from AphroditE, with Suzuki pinning Utami Hayashishita. It was a huge win for Suzu & Mei Seira, who have been a fantastic tag team since arriving in STARDOM and have had some of the best tag matches the promotion has had to offer over the past 12 months. Mei Seira now holds the High Speed and the Goddess of Stardom Championship, making her yet another double champion.

The show on Sunday in Yamagata featured the last matches of the departing talents under contract. Yuzuki’s last STARDOM match was a special singles match against Mei Seira. Both had a fun little high-speed match that ended with Seira winning the match with a dropkick. This was likely planned to be the cornerstone rivalry of the high-speed division in the upcoming years. This was a good match that and a nice send off for Yuzuki.

Mai Sakurai’s final STARDOM match was against Tam Nakano, and this one had more backstory with Sakurai being a former member of Cosmic Angels before she turned on them to join Donna del Mondo. She came out here with her old gear that she wore at the beginning of her STARDOM career. This match showed just how much Sakurai has improved in STARDOM over the nearly three years that she was in the promotion. While Sakurai showed resilience, she fell to the Violent Screwdriver in a great effort. Nakano & Sakurai hugged each other after the match

MIRAI’s final STARDOM match was a gauntlet match against her God’s Eye stablemates, with each match having a time limit of five minutes, and it was beautiful to watch. MIRAI interacted with all of her partners one last time in a STARDOM ring and it created several great moments. The highlight came against Saki Kashima, who was crying on the way to the ring just to roll up MIRAI after five seconds, only for the match to be restarted. Kashima rolled her up yet again with the Kishikaisei after short exchange. MIRAI’s final moments were against Syuri, and it was great. Post-match, Syuri let MIRAI hit her with a Lariat, and they hugged each other while the referee counted to three. A great send-off for the former Wonder of Stardom Champion.

In the semi-main event, Giulia had her final match as a contracted STARDOM talent, where she faced her best friend Suzu Suzuki. This was a really good match that originally ended in a 15-minute time limit draw, but the pair agreed to go five more minutes, only for the time to expire once more The draw was to be expected, but it was a good send-off for Giulia, who was able to have a strong showing against Suzu.

In the main event of the show, Utami teamed together with Queen’s Quest against OEDo Tai in a ten-woman tag team match. This was a really fun match with all ten wrestlers giving it all. It ended with Momo Watanabe pinning her former Royal Peach Tea partner Utami Hayashishita to win the match. Momo now has victories over Syuri, Kamitani, and Hayashishita in the last eight days and is seemingly in line for a bigger push under Bushiroad creative. Hayashishita ended her final show as a STARDOM wrestler together with Queen’s Quest in tears. It was an emotional moment as it was the last time fans will see this era of Queen’s Quest together.

Overall, these shows felt like an “end of an era” in STARDOM with the five wrestlers leaving the promotion, but it’s also the start of a new era with Bushiroad now having full control over everything in the promotion.